Waking up to a masterpiece

Forged in a moment of madness and nearly derailed by a debilitating illness, A Yi battled against all the odds to see his first full-length novel make it into print.

Chinese writer A Yi often appears ill at ease when talking at public events. Reading from a prepared speech in a low voice, his apparent lack of self-confidence seems to belie the fact that he has been hailed as one of the best writers of his generation by leading literary figures.

In his own words, the writer is often wracked by feelings of "self-doubt" and this accompanied him right up until the release of his only novel to date, Zao Shang Jiu Dian Jiao Xing Wo (Wake Me Up at 9 AM), which was published in January.

By the close of the 150,000-character novel, A Yi said he felt relieved, confident, and even "a little bit of a narcissist" when talking about the characterization and direction of the novel.

Sitting in a cafe near his Beijing home, the writer talked for more than an hour about Chinese literature, translation and his new novel, before he abruptly had to stop.

Still recovering from a disease of the immune system that nearly killed him five years ago, he continues to take regular medication to control the condition, which leaves him tired and prone to occasional bouts of memory loss.

In 2012, when the idea for his first novel finally came to fruition after years of writing short stories and novellas, he plunged into a state of mind that can only be described as madness.

In a process he later described as "self-indulgent", he would spend weeks on end staying up all night trying to write - usually fueled by coffee, cigarettes and spirits.

In order to vividly depict the sound of a character's steps, he would try on different kinds of shoes and walk around his room. He talked to himself to work out ways to create the dialogue.

Midway through the novel, however, this madness began to take its toll his body. His immune system collapsed, and the large doses of medicine he was taking to fight its effects on his respiratory system damaged one of his kidneys, leading to surgery.

For a time, the disease deprived him of his ability to concentrate, read or write. But urged on by his sense of mission, he somehow managed to pull through.

Having dedicated so much time and effort to his novel, A Yi was initially unwilling to publish it. But realizing his frailty, and having spent most of his savings on medical treatment, he agreed to sell the global publishing rights to the book to an Italian literary agent in late 2013.

The Italian edition was published five months ahead of the Chinese version, which is now on its second print run, picking up awards such as the Southern Weekly Book of the Year 2017 and Asian Weekly Top 10 Novels 2017. An English translation is currently underway.

A Yi says he used his experiences of living in rural Jiangxi province as the backbone for the novel.

While he plays his former narrative style to the full, he breaks through its limitations and adopts a new narrative style that would "better represent and reconstruct the physical and spiritual images of the rural area in the novel", emulating techniques that American writer William Faulkner employed in many of his novels, including Light in August.